FAS found Microsoft guilty of violating the rights of antivirus software developers and gave a month to fix problems

Photo: Anton Novoderezhkin / TASS

Today it became known that the Federal Antimonopoly Service demanded that Microsoft eliminate violations of antitrust laws within a month. We are talking about the proceedings, which was initiated by a complaint from Kaspersky Lab. The relevant decision was made on June 13, 2017. The agency accuses the corporation of abusing a dominant position in the market, in accordance with Part 1 of Article 10 of the Law on Protection of Competition.

Among other violations, the company has imposed restrictions on the form and timing of notifying users of third-party anti-virus software. We are also talking about including a section in the requirements for anti-virus software, the discrepancy to which is the basis for blocking and refusing to transfer anti-virus software to updated OS versions.

Another violation is blocking of third-party anti-virus software with simultaneous activation of Windows Defender anti-virus software without a corresponding notification with their explicit consent.
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Microsoft now plans to examine in detail the information from the FAS and begin working with Kaspersky Lab and other anti-virus software vendors in order to ensure the safety of users, TASS reports . “We are closely interacting with antivirus vendors and have taken a number of steps to review their feedback,” the company said.

The FAS investigation into Microsoft began in November last year , after a complaint was filed by Kaspersky Lab. “They (Kaspersky Lab - ed.) Reported that Microsoft has reduced the time for antivirus equipment manufacturer to adapt from 2 months to 6 days. In this situation, the manufacturer of antivirus equipment does not have the ability to adapt to the changed conditions and obviously loses to the manufacturer of antivirus equipment from Microsoft, which has its own software, ”said Anatoly Golomolzin, deputy head of the FAS Russia.